


'tis the season (to intentionally ruin all of your friendships)

by laurxnts, vannes



Series: More Landmarks, Less Landmines [4]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Christmas Presents, Everyone Gets Dragged And Ruins Friendhips, M/M, No One Is Nice To Each Other, assholes being assholes, the ot6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 16:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8807728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurxnts/pseuds/laurxnts, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vannes/pseuds/vannes
Summary: “You guys are disgusting,” Nicaise declares, like he hasn’t said it a thousand times before. “Give me my fucking present so I can leave.”Yuuri sighs, and holds up his carefully-wrapped package.“I’ll go first, since I’m probably the one least likely to have bought a literal bomb or something.”—AKA The Sort-Of Secret Santa Gift Exchange of TearsCan be read as a stand-alone!





	

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who haven't read the previous works, this is an AU set in the Yuri on Ice universe involving a lot of the Captive Prince characters too in which the six of them are all close friends, all figure skaters (more or less), and spend a ridiculous amount of time in each other's company forming what is probably the strangest makeshift adoptive family ever.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!!

“Remind me why we’re doing this again,” Nicaise grumbles from his place in front of the fire. Yuri makes a noise from underneath him that manages to sound both irritated and exhausted at the same time, his bright hair the only part of him visible from Yuuri’s spot on the couch. He’s sandwiched against the arm of the sofa and Victor himself, Victor’s chin resting on his shoulder.

“Tradition,” Damen insists, from the other end of the couch. Laurent is sitting half on top of him, struggling to hold his position without falling onto Victor. The four of them are trying to hold this precarious balance for no other reason than that Makkachin, ever perceptive, is sitting in the other armchair, curled up happily in front of the fire. He seems completely oblivious to the plight of the four human adults struggling to contain themselves to the sofa across from him. Nicaise smirks at them from his perch atop Yurio, in the only other chair in the room.

“I give up,” Laurent finally says, and Yuuri finds Victor pressed incredibly, though not unhappily, close. It lasts for a brief moment, where Yuuri can feel Victor’s nose nudging against the back of his neck, and then they ease into a slightly less intimate position. One glance to his left tells him that Laurent has given up, and is now sat. entirely in Damen’s lap. His feet nudge Victor’s hip, bare toes sliding under the sweatshirt.

“Hey!” Victor yelps, and Laurent laughs. It’s a rare sound, these days, and it makes Victor light up, despite Laurent’s cold skin against his. Yuuri tilts his head onto Victor’s shoulder, lets Victor settle in, arm tucked around Yuuri’s waist. Nicaise glares at them, and swats at the hand inching around his own waist. Yuuri smiles, and relaxes into Victor’s hold.

“I hope you got me something wonderful,” Victor murmurs in Yuuri’s ear, voice pitched low and heavy. Yuuri ignores the shiver it sends down his spine and thumbs at the wrapping on the present in his lap.

“I keep telling you that you’re not the person I drew,” Yuuri murmurs back, and ignores the dirty look Nicaise shoots at them.

“You guys are disgusting,” Nicaise declares, like he hasn’t said it a thousand times before. “Give me my fucking present so I can  _ leave _ .”

“Oh, are we starting?” Damen perks up, though Yuuri can’t see him from behind Laurent’s chest. Yurio pokes his head around Nicaise’s shoulder, scowl fixed in place. He scans the four of them on the couch, as if trying to judge exactly who is going to give him what. Yuuri sighs, and holds up his carefully-wrapped package.

“I’ll go first, since I’m probably the one least likely to have bought a literal bomb or something.” Victor chuckles against the nape of his neck and holds him a little closer. Yuuri fights a blush, and fights the urge to deck whoever’s making the retching noises coming from the armchair. He twists the ring on his right hand and tells himself that it’s okay, they’re just teenagers, they’ll grow out of it. Probably. Instead of getting up and dislodging Victor’s hold on him, he passes the gold-wrapped package over to Damen, who takes it with a noise of approval.

“A book?” He asks, and doesn’t wait for a response before tearing open the packaging on the lap of a disgusted-looking Laurent.

“I cannot  _ believe _ you just  _ tear the paper like that,” _ he says, and Yuuri can almost hear half the people in the room rolling their eyes. He doesn’t blame Laurent though; it  _ was _ nice packaging. Damen tosses the wrappings onto the floor, heedless of Laurent’s fond, irritated noise. Yuuri waits one breath, two, while he reads the title.

“Thanks,” Damen says, voice stiff. A second later, Yuuri hears Laurent’s telltale snort of repressed laughter, and then Victor is leaning to the side and grabbing the obnoxious yellow-and-black book from Damen’s hand. Nicaise tries to look interested without looking interested, and Yurio pops his head out from behind him when Victor clears his throat as obnoxiously as he seems to be able to manage. Damen groans, and Yuuri laughs a little, irrationally proud of his gift.

“ _ Figure Skating for Dummies _ ,” Victor reads aloud, in his most dramatic voice. Nicaise’s face cracks, and it’s nice to see him laughing after everything that’s happened, even if it is at Damen’s expense. Damen huffs something under his breath that Yuuri doesn’t think is English, and Laurent leans back to whisper something in his ear, still smiling. Victor hums to himself and starts thumbing through the thin pages, scouring the pages for something.

“What are you looking for?” Yuuri leans in close, rests his chin on Victor’s shoulder. It’s instinct now, for his hand to find Victor’s at his hip, thumb tracing over the warm gold of the engagement band. It hardly feels real, even though he’d been the one to propose.

“I bet I’m in here,” Victor replies smugly, before flipping to the back to presumably look in the index. Nicaise rolls his eyes, and there’s some kind of muffled groan from behind him that sounds suspiciously like  _ ‘you’re so conceited’ _ . Yuuri smiles, and takes the book away from Victor before he starts noticing things he disagrees with. Instead of passing it back to Damen, he places it on the coffee table in front of them, safely away from the four mugs of coffee strategically placed to be as close to their owners as possible.

He flies out for Japan tomorrow, alone this year. It stings a little, not being able to spend Christmas and Victor’s birthday with him, but Victor is flying to Hasetsu to meet him on the twenty-sixth, and that will have to be enough. Trying to shake his head clear, Yuuri squeezes Victor’s hand tightly and nudges at his cheek with his own head.

“Why don’t you go next?” He asks, and Victor beams.

“Yurio!” He exclaims, and this time, Yurio’s Russian curses are clearly audible even through the wool of Nicaise’s sweater. Victor, however, seems undeterred, and he flings himself off the couch and briefly tries to lift Nicaise off of the armchair before being kneed in the stomach. Yuuri tries not to pout at the sudden emptiness where seconds before there had only been warmth.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Yurio says, this time in English. Victor is still beaming, though now he’s standing a safe distance away and is rubbing gingerly at his abdomen. If looks could kill, Nicaise would likely be behind bars, and he lets his entire body sag on top of Yurio’s as Victor extends his small, square package. It’s not as neatly wrapped as Yuuri’s, but it doesn’t matter, because Yurio rips it off in approximately half a second.

“What the fuck,” Nicaise says, deadpan. Yuuri squints. Yurio, from what little he can see of him, seems to be somewhat sadistically pleased.

“Is that...duct tape?” Damen asks, hesitating for a moment like he isn’t sure he’s used the right word. Victor nods, seemingly oblivious to what he’s just done. An industrial-sized roll of shiny silver tape, in the hands of a malicious teenager. Yuuri shudders at the thought, and watches Yurio’s smile grow. Nicaise seems to catch on, too, and something about his smile makes Yuuri distinctly afraid.

“Yes, I thought he could use it to shut Nicaise up every once in a while.” Victor winks suggestively, and from the horrified and disgusted looks on the teenagers’ faces, it’s clear that they’d been thinking of significantly more ominous things.

“Shut up!” Yurio howls, and Victor retreats back to the couch before he sustains more physical harm. Yuuri welcomes his warmth and the hand returning to his waist, but it still looking with mute horror at the roll of tape in Yurio’s hands. He doesn’t even want to  _ think _ about what could go wrong here. Luckily, his mind is taken off it by Damen producing a neat-looking box wrapped in Santa-Patterned paper from underneath the coffee table.

“I saw this at Marks & Spencer the other day,” Damen grits out, sounding like he’d rather die than admit it. Yuuri isn’t sure why—it must be a European chain—but he revels in the amused glint in Victor’s eye. Damen glares back, daring him to say anything. “And I thought of you.”

Victor gasps in mock surprise, and lets Damen drop the box on his lap. He plucks at the tape, peeling it off gently until Laurent groans, shifting in Damen’s lap.

“Just get it over with.” Victor pouts for a moment, and then scrambles to rip open the paper. Yuuri stifles a laugh when he sees the box hidden underneath the paper, hears Victor’s pleased hum and rolls his eyes fondly.

“A mirror set!” Victor exclaims, discarding the wrapper on the floor. On the front of the box is an image of its contents: an antique-looking silver comb, a matching brush, and a handheld mirror. “Damen, how did you know?”

“Well,” Damen says with a smirk, “I just asked myself what the second most self-obsessed figure skater in the world would want as a gift, and the only thing I could think of was ‘himself.’”

Yurio barks a sharp laugh from underneath Nicaise, who seems to be half-heartedly attempting to control his own mocking laughter.

“Wait—” Victor starts, tugging a few folded sheets of paper out from underneath the box. They’re stapled together, and when Victor unfolds it, his smile drops.

“Do you not like it?” Damen asks, face as innocent as Yuuri thinks he can possibly make it. He tilts his neck, trying to read the headline of what looks to be a printed-out website article, and Victor hides the paper against his chest with a horrified wail. “Aw, come on. Show your fiancé!”

“I’d rather die,” Victor swears, but passes it over to Yuuri after a moment’s hesitation. Yuuri reads the title once, twice, then again out loud with laughter shaking in his voice.

“ _ How to (Finally) Outgrow Your Twink Phase, and Other Useful Tips _ **.** ”

“I can’t believe you all  _ hate _ me!” Victor exclaims, when everyone in the room erupts into laughter. “I’m not a twink! I’m twenty-seven!”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Laurent says consolingly, and pats Victor on the arm. Yuuri leans over to kiss him on the cheek, and gets a truly pathetic puppy-eyed look in response.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Damen,” Yurio says. Nicaise snorts ungracefully.

“Yeah, you’re not exactly a ‘have it in you’ kind of guy,” Nicaise says, arching an eyebrow, and Damen groans. Yuuri feels Victor’s laugh against the place his shoulder meets the curve of his neck, and stifles a smile. It’s ridiculous, he thinks, that in just a few years they’ve become nearly inseparable, joined at the hip with the rest of this unlikely group. During the competitive season it’s hard to stay as connected as a group, but when it’s the six of them in one of Victor’s rentals or Laurent’s spacious condo, it’s easy to fall back into the patterns they’ve developed along the way.

“Please, let it go,” Damen groans, and Laurent jabs his elbow back teasingly. “I regret doing it, please don’t do this to me.”

“Do what?” Nicaise asks, all wide-eyed innocence, and Yuuri bites back his scoff. “Fine.”

“So, who’s next?” Victor asks, still nursing his wounded pride. Yuuri lets his hand cover the one Victor has on his waist, in an effort to keep it there as long as possible. Laurent shrugs, and reaches underneath the coffee table as well to pull out a plain brown cardboard box, held closed with scotch tape and completely unmarked. Yuuri watches curiously as he crosses the few steps to drop it on Nicaise’s lap; whatever’s in the box makes a sound almost like glass.

“Thanks for trying so hard,” Nicaise scoffs, but digs his key ring out of his pocket and cuts open the tape without hesitation. He peers inside for a moment, and then pulls out something cylindrical, wrapped in brown paper. When the paper is torn off, they all stare at the plain glass jar engraved with the word  _ his _ , with a piece of paper taped to it that simply reads  _ swear jar _ in Laurent’s slanted hand. Yuuri can’t help his giggle this time, and only barely manages to stifle it when Nicaise turns his glare on him. “What the fuck is this.”

“There’s two in there; they’re a matching set,” Laurent supplies helpfully, settling back onto Damen’s lap. “I thought it would make a nice couple’s gift.”

“We’re not a fucking couple,” Yurio growls. Victor nudges his nose up against Yuuri’s jaw.

“That’s one for the swear jar,” Laurent comments mildly. Nicaise looks like he’s considering breaking his thus-empty swear jar over Laurent’s head.

“Look underneath.” Laurent’s amusement is thinly veiled, and all of them know that whatever comes next is going to end badly for  _ someone _ , but Nicaise reaches into the bottom of the box anyway and pulls out the shrink-wrapped CD. Less than a second later, he throws it back into the box, expression turning murderous as he glares at Laurent. Nobody speaks for a long moment, until Yurio pokes his head around Nicaise’s chest and smirks.

“Was that NSYNC?” He asks, and Nicaise flings himself up off the chair, dumping the box back onto Laurent’s lap before storming out of the living room.

“Is...he okay?” Damen asks, when the sounds of his footsteps have faded. Yurio’s smirk stays firmly in place, and he stares at the rest of them smugly. “Should you go after him?”

“He’s just getting his present,” Yurio says, and Yuuri gets the strangest sense of foreboding in the pit of his stomach. He and Laurent are the only two to have not received a gift, and from the look on Yurio’s face, neither of them are probably going to enjoy what the teenagers have in store for them. “While he’s up, though—”

Yurio leans forward to grab something from underneath the recliner, and flings it at Yuuri. He only barely manages to catch it—it’s an unwrapped magazine, rolled up into a ball, and Victor perks up from where he’s been sulking for the last few minutes. Yuuri stares at it for a little while, unsure if he  _ really _ wants to know what Yurio got him. Finally, Victor takes the decision out of his hands—quite literally—and grabs the magazine, unrolling it and reading the headline of the tabloid out loud, vengefully.

“ _ How to Get Your Celebrity Crush to Notice You _ ,” he says, and Yuuri buries his face in his hands with a groan. He really does regret everything that’s ever happened that has brought him to this point. He especially regrets ever laying eyes on Yuri Plisetsky, who seems to be taking some sick form of pleasure from seeing them all humiliated. “Y _ uu _ ri, I didn’t think you cared!”

“We’re  _ engaged _ ,” Yuuri whispers from behind his hands, half-mortified and half-enraged. Victor laughs, and leans down to kiss his exposed cheekbone.

“Why did I somehow  _ know _ that Nicaise would end up with me?” Laurent muses, sounding more resigned than anything. There’s a pregnant pause, and Yuuri peeks out from behind his fingers to see Victor, looking guilty, staring at Laurent. “You didn’t.”

“Listen—” Victor starts, and Yuuri starts laughing helplessly. “Laurent please, he blackmailed me, I didn’t want—”

“No.” Laurent’s voice is cold, but underlaid with humor. “You’re no longer my friend and as soon as I retire I’m going to murder you both and live a long and happy life in jail knowing that you can never bother me  _ ever again _ .”

“I’ll help,” Damen offers valiantly, and Laurent pats his thigh gently.

“Thank you, dear.” Victor drops his head onto Yuuri’s shoulder, still shaking from the aftershocks of his laughter. He makes an agonized noise, and Yuuri links their fingers together, gold clicking against gold against his waist. Nicaise chooses that moment to enter the room, face partially obscured by the large, newspaper-wrapped, misshapen package in his arms. He dumps it on Laurent’s lap without a word and then spreads himself on top of Yurio again, who has started to fiddle with his newly-unwrapped roll of shiny silver tape.

“Are these...” Laurent begins, squinting at the newspaper clumsily wrapped around the oddly-shaped package. “...Obituaries?”

Nicaise stares at them, and doesn’t say a word.

“Okay,” Laurent replies to the silence, and tears off the wrapping.

It takes a few moments for the carnage of the paper to settle, and when it does, the room is still. Laurent looks at the basket on his lap like it’s some kind of radioactive waste, and Nicaise is staring smugly from his chair like a king lording over his subjects.

“Laurent...” Victor says, with something like awe. The massive basket overflowing with My Little Pony merchandise stares back at them from Laurent’s lap, its gaze as triumphant as Nicaise’s. Yuuri isn’t sure whether he’s horrified or impressed—maybe a little bit of both, if only because of the look of absolute revulsion present on Laurent’s face. Yuuri thinks that if that gaze were directed at him, he’d turn into a weeping pile of goo on the floor.

Laurent doesn’t say anything. This time, it’s his turn to leave the room, basket held outstretched from his body like he can hardly bear to touch it. He returns three tense, silent minutes later, with empty arms. The temperature of the room drops a few degrees, like someone had briefly opened a window. Laurent stands in the doorway of the living room and stares, dead-eyed, at Nicaise. Neither of them blink, neither look away. Yuuri finds himself holding his breath, Victor’s fingers clenched tightly around his own.

Damen’s the one who finally breaks the silence.

“Well, that was fun!” Laurent and Nicaise immediately turn their glares on  _ him _ then, and Damen seems to wither. “Um...we could order takeout?”

“Only if you pay for mine,” Yurio says from underneath Nicaise, voice muffled. Damen looks at Victor helplessly, who only nods in response.

Soon enough, they break—Yuuri follows Damen into the kitchen to write down everybody’s orders and place the call, Laurent lounges on the sofa with an expression that looks like he’s legitimately considering murder, Victor takes a bathroom break, and the teenagers vanish somewhere that Yuuri doesn’t really want to think about right now. They all seem content to do their own thing while Yuuri and Damen leave to collect the six bags of Thai food they’d managed to rack up, but when they get home and deposit the bags on the coffee table, Yuuri notices something.

“Have you seen Victor?” He asks Laurent, who’s still lying on the couch, though he’s moved on from murder to some kind of iPhone game. He looks up at Yuuri uncaringly, arching a perfect golden eyebrow.

“No,” he says. Yuuri nods, slowly.

“Have you seen Nicaise or Yurio?”

“No,” Laurent repeats. He doesn’t seem to find anything at all wrong with these two statements. Yuuri groans, and lets his head fall into his hands. Approximately three seconds later, Nicaise and Yurio slink back into the living room, satisfied smirks on their faces. Yuuri gets a terrible, sinking feeling in his stomach.

“What’s up, morons?” Yurio asks, shielding something under his leopard-print sweatshirt that looks suspiciously like one of Victor’s nicer bottles of vodka. Yuuri thinks for a moment, and then decides to simply pick his battles.

“Have you seen Victor?”

“I think he went out to go find that My Little Pony stuff,” Nicaise offers, grabbing at one of the plastic bags and rifling through it. Yuuri heaves a sigh—there’s no telling what’s happened since he left, and he’s not sure he wants to prod. If Victor doesn’t show up in five minutes, he’ll start to worry.

Five minutes come and go, but Yuuri hardly notices—Damen had flicked on the TV to a football game, and subsequently gotten shouted at by two irritated teenagers. Even then, he’d staunchly refused to give up the remote, until Laurent finally looked up from his curry to whisper something in his ear. Yuuri, enraptured by Nicaise and Yurio’s perfect synchronicity in the single armchair they’d squeezed into, completely forgets to be worried about Victor until he stands up to use the bathroom and realizes that Victor is still nowhere to be seen.

He’s spared the trouble of looking when he opens the door and sees Victor, wrapped completely in duct tape and immobilized on the floor.

There’s a simple moment in which Yuuri can do nothing except stare. It’s not only that Victor is bound with the very duct tape he’d gifted not an hour ago, it’s the fact that nearly every inch of his body is  _ covered _ in it, including his mouth. On top of that, he’s been firmly secured to the tiled floor, and his heaving chest and pink cheeks are a testament to the quality of the job. If Yuuri’s looking at it objectively, he has to be impressed.

Victor makes a muffled, indignant sound, looking up at him with wide eyes as if to plead with Yuuri to  _ get him out of this _ .

“You really did bring this on yourself,” Yuuri muses, and watches his engagement fall apart right before his eyes. He recognizes the curses, both in English and Russian, despite the strip of tape muffling the words. It’s such an absurd sight that he can’t stop himself from laughing, and looks down at the betrayed look in his fiancé’s eyes.

“You  _ did _ ,” he insists, smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth. Victor whines, giving up anger in favor of turning his best Makkachin eyes up at Yuuri. Yuuri stares down, contemplating. From the living room, he hears the sound of heated voices.

“You know,” he says, still taking in the sight of Victor immobile beneath him. His smile turns smug, and he sees Victor’s eyes widen. He  _ knows _ this look. “This look really does suit you. I may have to ask Yurio for some... _ tips _ .”

He steps back out of the bathroom and closes the door behind him. A second and a half of silence later, Victor begins to wail.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions about anything or want to request a fic from this verse, catch us on tumblr: [Emma](http://yuriplitsesky.tumblr.com) / [Alex](http://achillesandpatroclvs.co.vu)


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